Three jailed for total of 25 years for attempting to murder sleeping man in Aberdeen

A woman who was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder after she took part in a brutal murder bid on a sleeping man was jailed for six years today.

Ashley Duncan joined two male accomplices in repeatedly punching, kicking and stamping on their vulnerable victim who had previously suffered a head injury.

A judge told Duncan, 22, and her co-accused Mathew Donaldson and Lee Hutchison: “You fled the scene and in the words of one witness ‘left him for dead’.”

Lady Scott said at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You left your victim with catastrophic brain injuries.”

The victim of the attempted murder Jordan Jones, 28, remains in hospital following the assault on him on May 22 last year.

Lady Scott said it was very likely he will remain heavily dependent on care.

The judge added: “His family have been left devastated and bereft.You were all within a flat and consumed excessive amounts of alcohol and valium.”

She jailed Duncan and her accomplices for a total of 25 years. Hutchison, 29, was sentenced to an 11-year prison term after he was convicted of the murder bid and other violent offending.

Donaldson, 23, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.

Lady Scott told father-of-two Hutchison: “I am satisfied on the evidence that you were the instigator of the attack on Mr Jones.”

Duncan, of Short Loanings, Rosemount, Donaldson, of King Street, and Hutchison, of Berrywell Walk, Dyce, all Aberdeen, had earlier denied attempting to murder Mr Jones but were found guilty of the offence.

Hutchison and Donaldson launched the attack on him after he had fallen asleep on a couch at a house in Auldearn Place in the city with Duncan joining in the attack.

Lady Scott said that prior to the attack there had been a background between Hutchison and Mr Jordan. She said: “If you did not know beforehand, you were told during this attack your victim suffered a previous head injury.”

Weeks before the murder bid Hutchison had committed another serious assault in Caiesdykes Crescent, in Aberdeen.

He approached Murdo McRobb “for reasons unknown” in his car and when he got out the vehicle punched him on the face.

The victim fell to the ground and was repeatedly punched and kicked and suffered a broken jaw.

During his catalogue of violent crime Hutchison had taken part in an earlier attack with Donaldson on a man at Gardner Drive, in Aberdeen, on February 20 last year.

The pair punched Kenny Grubb, pulled his jacket over his head and repeatedly punched him with a knuckle duster to the head to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement. Hutchison also punched another man, Jamie Pittendrigh, with the knuckle duster.

Jonathan Crowe, counsel for Duncan, said: “Her life simply went off the rails.”

He said she had been diagnosed with PTSD and had described what happened in the attempted murder as “horrifying”.

He said she had acknowledged the life-changing effects for the victim of the attack. Mr Crowe said the murder bid was “effectively committed in a vacuum of drugs and alcohol and an off the rails lifestyle”.

Tony Lenehan, counsel for Donaldson, said: “He was 21 at the time, a relatively young man. He was poorly equipped, not through his own doing, for adulthood generally.”

Defence counsel Michael Anderson, for Hutchison, said: “There was at the time of the offences a difficult drug problem which has to a degree been tackled.”